Woman is discovered dead on Maine porch

A substitute teacher from Marblehead was found dead after apparently climbing out the window of her Maine vacation home in her pajamas and walking barefoot across the frigid ground, officials said.

Brenda Desatnick, 59, was found Saturday on the front porch of an unoccupied home two-tenths of a mile from the house she and her husband own in Newry near the Sunday River ski area in western Maine.

Desatnick was reported missing at 1 p.m. after her husband went into her first-floor bedroom and found the room empty and the window open. Investigators followed the footsteps left by her bare feet outside the window and found her at 5:30 p.m., said Stephen McCausland, spokesman for the Maine Department of Public Safety.

There was no indication of foul play, McCausland said yesterday. The medical examiner's office conducted an autopsy, but declined to announce the cause of death until additional tests were completed, McCausland said.

Temperatures in the area dropped to minus 6 degrees early Saturday morning, with winds as high as 15 miles per hour pushing wind chills to 35 degrees below zero, according to the National Weather Service in Gray, Maine.

"If you're not dressed properly in those conditions, it could result in someone's death pretty quickly," said weather service meteorologist James Brown. Allen Desatnick, 63, is an entrepreneur who had hung an "Inventor" sign in front of his house on McKinley Road in Marblehead, according to Jayson Score, who lives next door.

Brenda Desatnick had done some substitute teaching in local schools, including the Dr. Samuel C. Eveleth School and Marblehead Middle School.

The couple has a son who attends college out of state, Score said.